


Ace of Hearts

by misbehavingvigilante



Series: Tales Inspired by the Discord Year 1 [32]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Character Study, Depression, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 10:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21390874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: Of course Steve doesn’t really want to be alone, he likes the idea of having a partner, he just isn’t sure if he’s doing it right. From what he’s heard, mostly from Bucky, is that he’s missing some key aspect involved with relationships.The attraction.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Tales Inspired by the Discord Year 1 [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1213668
Comments: 15
Kudos: 76





	Ace of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreyaS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaS/gifts).

> Like 7, 8 months ago I promised this fic, but lo and below it's here on Atto birthday instead. Enjoy. 
> 
> Let me know if I missed any tags/warnings.

Steve feels conflicted. He knows that there are those that believe because he’s like this, because he has a body like this that he shouldn’t even presume to have relationships in the first place. Some part of that ties into the fact many people are uncomfortable with the idea of him having children, of him passing onto anything to them, of merely creating more *burdens* to society.

So the kind thing, the responsible thing is to resolve himself to a lifetime of being alone. 

Of course Steve doesn’t really want to be alone, he likes the idea of having a partner, he just isn’t sure if he’s doing it right. From what he’s heard, mostly from Bucky, is that he’s missing some key aspect involved with relationships.

The attraction.

It’s not on the end people expect, he knows a lot of people wouldn’t consider him a catch so he feels vaguely arrogant at when there is any nascent interest, that there’s something missing on his end. He doesn’t mind kissing, he doesn’t mind holding hands but the thought of anything progressing from there, and it just… doesn’t click.

By all rights, he shouldn’t be picky, he should be grateful.

But is it really right to lie to a person about this? To be so intimate with them but the desire to be completely false?

It’s difficult to explain, and he’s not really sure if he’s explaining himself properly judging by Bucky’s scrunched up face of confusion. He had to tell someone, however, he felt like he might drown underneath the weight of his feelings if he kept having to pretend he was normal.

“Maybe you just don’t like women?” Bucky suggested, his tone as free of judgement that Steve would suspect given they lived around quite a lot of characters that common folks would not consider of high moral fiber.

His ma wouldn’t have minded, she had been a very open minded person more concerned with making sure everyone was happy and healthy to care too much about what person someone was attracted to.

“Maybe.” Steve admitted. There’s a lack of public avenues to try something like that, maybe that’s all that’s missing. That’s he’s trying to create a spark where there is none simply because he’s not that way, but then it’s not as if Steve doesn’t like women.

He likes them like artworks, pretty but there’s an inherent distant in his interest.

He’s never really considered liking men before maybe because there was so much wrong with him to begin with, that he didn’t want to humor that there could be something else.

Wrong in the eyes of many, even if Steve didn’t feel like it was wrong in his heart.

Why couldn’t anything be simple?

“Hey, we’ll figure something out, okay?” Bucky said reassuredly, a comforting hand on his shoulders but not too firm that would rattle his weak bones.

~

The war comes to the states, and such things like attraction and dates fall to the wayside in the wake.

The war takes Bucky as it conscripts countless men.

Then, Steve makes the war take him.

~

Then there’s Peggy.

She looks at all of him instead of through him in an attempt to find redeeming qualities for his outside appearance as many others have done before. The attention, all of it is almost overwhelming at first because he’s used to be looking at him in pieces rather than taking in the entire picture.

To say she hasn’t been occupying his thoughts as well is a lie. Her carefully painted lips, the swing when she decked a solider mouthing off to her, the fact she too had been walking towards the grenade, Steve feels a spark of affection for her.

He thinks about what it might be like to hold her hands, would they be soft or would they be callous since she is also a solider? If they kissed, would her lipstick smear onto him like a brand?

Steve knows he like women, with how he feels about Peggy but surrounded by this many men, he takes them in all the same, and the same note of distant appreciation tells him he likes both. He’s heard of that before, it’s nice not having to pick a side.

He still doesn’t feel that attraction or desire that other speak of.

He likes Peggy, but he doesn’t like her like that and Steve, Steve is confused.

But as things go in war, there’s always something else to do, there’s always something demanding his attention.

~

The serum changes things but it comes at a heavy price, Eskrine.

People look at him more but it feels the same as it did when he was smaller, they’re not seeing the full picture, they’re not seeing Steve, all they’re seeing is Captain America.

It’s a new kind of isolation but Steve isn’t sure how he likes how some people eyes rove over him now with their hungry gazes. He’s not an idiot, he might not feel desire himself but he’s seen it on others and it being directed towards him doesn’t exactly make him feel comfortable.

It’s normal he tells himself, he should be fine with the attention, this is what normal people do but he doesn’t like it.

The repulsion and violation he feels when he’s kissed by someone he doesn’t know well, who invades his space and claims even more of it for their own.

It doesn’t help that Peggy sees this but he doesn’t have the words to really explain himself and makes everything worse.

~

A lot happens between that kiss and his next kiss.

Bucky’s loss weighs on him like an open wound, boiling and festering, impossible to ignore with how it aches and how its infection spreads across his entire body leaving no part of him untouched. Had he taken things for granted? Assumed that Bucky would always be there and never would the threat of death brush against him until he was old and gray?

It didn’t matter, it couldn’t matter but the war stop for no loss.

It takes, it takes, and it takes.

Peggy’s presence is a balm, but even she herself couldn’t wholly heal of Bucky’s absence, it’s like missing a limb, you know it’s not there, but you still feel it.

But whatever Hydra is planning will make everyone’s life much more difficult and erase countless more so he acts because there isn’t anything else he can do.

He and Peggy kiss and for once, and it’s not quite the end all to be all, there’s nothing that slots into place, nothing that makes him feel like he understands desire, all it makes him wish for is more time, that he can have a lifetime with her and maybe find she’s the partner he’s been looking for all along.

~

Of course, that doesn’t happen.

His life against the lives of many is not something that even bears considering. He takes the sacrifice route because that what’s needs to be done.

In this moment, it doesn’t matter what his hopes and dreams are, all that matter is he has a body and that one body can prevent a countless loss of lives, so of course he throws himself down on the wire. Accepting death with as much grace that he can muster, content with the fact that he did good.

~

Then Steve wakes up.

And there is a world, but it is not his world.

It is both hope and loss in the same breath.

~

Then the world needs saving again, because of course it does. Maybe naively he had thought, that war would the last war, that humanity would learn its lesson and not repeat some bloodshed and death again and again. But his research into the future only serves to depress him with how little things have changed.

But then it’s not humanity that’s trying to bring about their downfall this time, its aliens from outer space and apparently gods, and he just feels like someone is pulling one big joke on him. SHIELD didn’t get him the first time around, but this is just so nonsensical enough that it might work to make him question his grip on reality and that his mind just isn’t just making up some sort of dreamscape while he quietly drifts of to his death in the ice because no one should be able to survive this.

Steve’s not sure if he wanted to survive knowing this is what he comes back to, but then people are in danger, people who he can save, and he has a purpose again and he beats back those thoughts he pointedly doesn’t tell SHIELD about. In truth, he’s not really sure how much he can trust the organization.

His suspicions later on are proven right.

But there’s no time for such thoughts because cosmic threat comes through the skies of New York and rains down chaos. All he has is a makeshift team, a team that feels barely like a team, and just like piecing back together a broken vase with glue that’s out of date, and barely has an ounce of stick left in it.

It’s imperfect, cracked, and coming apart at the seams with just one bare brush enough to bring them all into pieces.

But they don’t come apart, it’s a near thing, but they stand together and they stay together.

And miraculously, miraculously, they all make it.

~

He doesn’t get along with Tony, not all of that is Steve’s fault, some of it was the influence from the stone, and some of it was because of the man himself.

Still, despite the fact they mostly patched things up Steve doesn’t expect the invite to the tower, not after he’d went and insulted it. Or after he told the team, again, if they could call it that, that he was going to explore and see what America looked like now.

The fact is being by himself, it was meant to orient Steve, get his head back on straight, but being by himself, being left alone with his thoughts, it takes him to some dark places. He remedies it by helping out where he can, simple favors, simple neighborly things when he comes passing through a town or city. Not by anything big or grandiose but just simple things like fixing fences, that introduce him to the way things are now, and let him see how people are.

Around people he’s okay mainly because he has to be, the mask of Captain America protects him from his dark thoughts, but it also swallows him whole as the chasm between Steve and Captain America shrink, and he’s not sure which is which anymore.

It’s not ideal, but it’s manageable, he can endure, he’s endured worse.

Tony’s call is both an annoyance and blessing. Tony’s offer is very assured, very confident in the way business men are that they can get you to agree to whatever deal it is they’re offering regardless of how good it is for you or not.

But Tony’s voice is familiar, the threadbare tension still resting between them is an anchor because they’ll fight, if they come together, but if they can make pass that maybe there’s a chance he have friends, a team in this century after all.

Or if they can’t, then well, Steve had the right idea about roughing it out himself.

~

Being in the tower makes him irritable, but it bats away the darker thoughts because he has to be fine, so he is fine.

Tony quickly labels him as grumpy and says he should try coffee to do something about his bitchy attitude. If alcohol doesn’t work, then Steve doubts that coffee will do anything to temper his moods. He’s not trying to be a bitch as it were, it’s just everything grates on him and he doesn’t understand why.

People are supposed to make it easier, so why is everything harder?

Everything he’s getting worked up over isn’t worth it in the end, it’s not the end of the world level threat, it’s really just six people in a tower together who haven’t quite learnt how to live with other people properly before plus all of their personalities mixing together in the same place.

Steve thinks back to what the SHIELD psychologists had been saying, that it would be normal if he had problems adjusting, that he might even suffer depression because of them but that doesn’t make sense.

Isn’t being depressed just being sad and unable to get out of bed?

Steve isn’t quite sure, but that said he wants to keep things close to his chest so he doesn’t look up anything online, he knows given it’s the tower that Tony could in theory see his search history and he doesn’t want to deal with that.

Old fashioned solutions still work in modern days so he hits the library and tries to be lowkey enough about it so that he doesn’t attract any undue attention.

He’s careful in what he’s looking at, and careful in thinking up any excuses he might have to be in this section. That he’s just trying to understand everything in the modern day excuse works almost every time, even if sometimes Steve grows annoyed when people really have no idea what life was really like back then. There are some subjects that are new, yes, but he’s not ignorant as a lot of people seem to think he would be.

He finds a book on depression, and flips around until he can see the symptoms that it can cause, and well, his sudden irritation, his constant bad mood seem to be connected to his overall darker thoughts that whisper he should have stayed in the ice, or that he should test how bulletproof the serum really is.

It does also however mention that there are certain groups of people that depression is more likely to impact, he sees gay, but there’s a lot of other identities, he isn’t really sure what they meant just that they’re somehow connected.

Steve doesn’t check out the book, but with his memory as it is, he knows he’ll remember the words easily enough and finds a section that deals with gay and other such identities.

He spends a lot longer with that book than the book he had about depression.

~

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

Depending on how the rest of this conversation goes, Steve isn’t sure if it’ll stick or not but for now he’s willingly to humor Tony. “I had fun at the library.”

“You could be a poster boy for the preservation of libraries.”

Steve raised an eyebrow “What do you mean?”

“Some people don’t think we need libraries anymore since everything is digital and going online. I mean, I’m sure you noticed how different the library was compared to back when you last visited, yeah?”

“People like you?” Steve asked, knowing that Tony was a futurist and how he rarely used something so old fashioned if there was something new he could use instead.

“Okay, wow.” Tony rolled his eyes. “I guess I deserve that since I’ve been kinda a dick recently too but no. I don’t want to get rid of libraries, libraries do a lot of stuff, you can’t do everything online. I mean, maybe eventually, it’s hard to predict where technology will go, you can have all the signs pointing one way and then someone drops off a new idea of thinking or a new invention and suddenly everything changes.”

“Okay, back to libraries.”

“Sorry, my attention span isn’t good.” Tony shrugged, taking the remote out of Steve’s hand which was rude, but the brush of contact he didn’t mind as much as he thought he would have. “But yes, I’ll be pro library forever. I can set you up with some programs and stuff, if you want the world to know how Captain America feels about libraries, too. If you want, that is.”

“Might help if a futurist like yours is also there.”

“You want me there?” Tony blinked. “That’s a surprise.”

“You know, I don’t hate you, right?”

“I mean, in my experience, it tends to be easier to assume that if I’m not getting along with someone they hate me, or they want to do something bad to my company. I figured you’re not after my company, so the problem is just me. But like I said, been a dick too. I offered my home, but I guess, I didn’t really… understand what it would be like living with my team mates.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “I didn’t either but I don’t dislike it.”

“If you don’t dislike it, then we could just make it an avengers thing instead of me and you thing for the library?”

“You afraid to spend some time with me alone?”

“No.” Tony chuckled. “I guess, being in a library would stop us from fighting since you got to keep it down, we can pass notes of discord to each other instead. I insult the way you stack the bowls in the kitchen, and then you can scribble down in your perfect handwriting about how if I knock over a container of pens, that the decent thing to do is to pick them up or I need to square up and go a few rounds with you instead.”

“I’ll let you put on the suit.” Steve said but there was a grin on his face.

“Too afraid to thrown down with me outside of the armor, hm? I’ll have you know Natasha has been throwing me on the mat recently. She really likes doing it, but she’s taught me a few things. So watch out.” Tony looks so smug, that Steve is tempted to take him up on that offer.

“Oh no, I’m so frightened.”

“Did you just use sarcasm?”

“Not a modern invention, Stark.”

~

Things get better after that, they’re not magically perfect either since Steve doesn’t stop lying to his SHIELD’s therapists because really, he doesn’t want to deal with people really knowing that about him. It’s too personal and private, and he’s sure some might have already guessed or they know by proximity but Steve isn’t overly concerned if his teams knows about it.

There’s an amount of what happens in the tower, stays in the tower as new loyalties form as the team bonds between them grown stronger.

Knowing he has depression, and knowing its array of symptoms helps him piece it together better than before. Steve really hadn’t thought so many of things he felt had one singular cause, maybe because back before the serum, he had never been that lucky where everything neatly went back to just one sole condition.

Things with Tony in particular are good, the note of tension seems to have finally left and they still argue and still don’t always get along but it’s nothing quite like before. The sense of affection and camaraderie between them is special, it differs in a way from his other teammates to the point that Steve is aware of what’s going on relatively early on.

Which complicates things because what he hears of Tony, what he knows of Tony, well…

Tony likely isn’t going to like him back even if it is mutual.

The thought is depressing, and his depression seizes on it and makes the next couple of days not very swell in Steve’s opinion.

Tony invites him down to his workshop, he’s been down there a lot after the library incident, but he hasn’t been done here recently, he wonders if Tony misses him, or if he just misses the company. He knows sometimes Natasha’s silent presence is down there too or sometimes it’s Clint who really seems to like Tony’s bots.

Thor and Bruce are rare visitors, but it isn’t as if Tony doesn’t care for those teammates. Thor knows more science than people think, and Bruce has the same fervent love of science but a distrust of the state that Tony leaves his workshop in. 

“You can just draw. You leave one of sketchpads and supplies in here the other day.”

Steve knows that he didn’t, that Tony must have bought him some but is attempting to seem like he didn’t because he knows Steve gets uncomfortable when Tony just buys everything for him.

Still, Steve takes the request for silent companionship as it is,

He misses Tony, even though he’s not happy at the prospect of being rejected or thought of as broken about how he is. That is going to hurt coming from someone he likes, but he can’t blame Tony if sex is a big deal to him.

Steve knows sex is important to people, that they like it for pleasure, or connection. Steve knows he’s not repulsed by the idea of sex, he knows some asexuals are, he thinks he falls more on the side of indifference. He might not mind trying out sex with the right partner, but it seems as appealing as putting up laundry to him.

Even Tony who he likes, the dark brown eyes, the tan skin, the calloused hands, the shine of the arc reactor doesn’t feel him like the desire to want to have sex with him. He likes touching Tony but there’s a limit of how much he wants, and it cuts off before anything sways over to sexual.

“So.” Tony says finally, swiveling in his chair so he take in Steve. “Did you know that Natasha’s aromantic?”

“No.” Steve knew what it was, but Natasha hadn’t shared this with him. “How do you know? Did she tell you? Is it okay to be telling me?”

“Steve, relax, it’s not a secret.” Tony said softly. “I wouldn’t out anyone. I actually lived through some of the centuries you took a nap through, so you know I got it when someone had to stay in the closet for their safety. Not that some still don’t today, but not as many, at least.”

“Okay, so why are you telling me this?”

“Well, Nat told me I think because of the whole undercover gig where she surmised that I wasn’t pansexual rather just panromantic. I’m on the ace spectrum, baby.”

Steve blinked. He hadn’t seen that coming. “You are…? But…”

“Most of my antics happened while I was younger.” Tony shrugged. “After Afghanistan, well, there’s an interesting discussion to be had about disability and sexuality. And trauma, can’t forget about trauma as much as I would want to. The arc reactor made sex a little tricky at first, and then I was dying, and well, I guess after that it was like sex is great and all but what about green energy to combat our climate crisis instead? That’s real sexy. Science is sexy, the thrill of invention, the times I actually get to sleep without a nightmare.”

“Well… sexuality is fluid.” Steve had read that repeatedly into his introduction of queer literature, it wasn’t the same for everyone, but for many, their sexuality was a moving target that shifted over the years shaped by circumstances and experiences.

“Yeah, so, I’m kinda getting the sense you are too?” Tony nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I could be wrong but you were talking the other day about how you didn’t like being viewed as a sex symbol, and I know that makes some people uncomfortable to begin with. But if you don’t feel attraction or rarely, then it’s different.”

“I am.” Steve didn’t think he had ever admitted it aloud before. “It’s… kinda a relief that you are, I was so worried that you wouldn’t like me since I could just be indifferent to sex or end up hating it altogether.”

“Sex or no sex, you’re still Steve.” Tony smiled. “And I really like Steve."

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna chat, I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thiefoftruth26).


End file.
